"There are many forms of research. A life richly lived with willingness and ability to listen well and observe carefully, to reflect deeply and clearly on one's experiences, and to care about the lives of those who have struggled is one form." ~ Jones (Vern) & Jones (Louise), 2010

Monday, August 22, 2005

Dear Anonymous

In response to this post, "More on Graphic Images," which is a continuation of "Is the Picture Worth a Thousand Words?" I received this anonymous comment, and made the reply that follows. I wanted to bring this discussion to the forefront, because there are lives at stake. I encourage discussion, but will not tolerate any attack on my reader.

Anonymous writes:

"I'm a post abortive woman, I had an abortion at 19 and I'm 24 now and I have viewed several sites containing graphic images lately. The fetus in the coffin, the scattered arms and legs, as well as the ole' babies in the trash can. I'm not effected. I'm pregnant now and will have an abortion in two weeks. You have made in error in judgement if you really think these images will have a significant impact. Peta has been showing grisly images of slaugter and cruelty for years. Yet I've seen people who winced viewing video of screaming cattle vomiting blood after having it's throat cut, being skinned alive, and their meat being dragged through feces on it's way to McDonalds go out the next day and slobber all over their Big Mac. If someone really wants that Big Mac or feels they need that abortion, they will still get it."

I replied as follows:

"Dear Anon,

I don't disagree with you at all about the gory pictures. We can become and are desensitized to violent images and violent acts. I hope you will visit to read again, because I will be posting about dissociation this week.

Dissociation is how we separate ourselves from the emotions that are naturally, biologically, and rightly engendered at seeing violence done to fellow members of our species. But it is a very, very poor coping mechanism that leaves us damaged.

You are also correct in that these pictures and words will only work on those who are open to the effect. People will always kill other people because we can't legislate or wish away aberrant and maladaptive behavior.

I saw pictures of aborted fetuses before I had my abortion. And then I saw my real aborted baby, in little baby pieces. It was 1979, and young people were more immature and less exposed to violence, then. You have grown up in a different world, one made more violent by the people in my generation and that of my parents. I am very sorry for that.

I love a good steak, but seeing a cow in the field doesn't make me hungry, and neither would watching it be slaughtered. I'm glad that's someone else's job, though, because people have to eat.

But psychologically that has nothing to do with the death of human infants in the wombs of human women, or pictures of dead human beings. Our brains don't respond the same way, because a dead cow is not intrinsically threatening to our own lives.

I made no judgment that these pictures have a significant impact. I have been told by others that they do. I will never use them or link directly to them. I believe hurting the one to save the ninety-nine is wrong, because as Christians, we are taught in Scripture that the Lord leaves the ninety-nine in order to save the one.

I have a link at the sidebar to 4-D images of the child in the womb, alive. I don't know how far along you are, but I can tell you researchers say he or she has enough of a neurological system by eight weeks to feel the pain of being aborted. Slaughtered cows are put out of their pain before they are killed. Infants in the womb have no such protection.

You have the legal right to choose to abort your child. That doesn't mean you have to choose it, or that you have to do so in ignorance of the damaging effect it might have on you now, and in the future when you want to keep your children.

A fetal infant is not a Big Mac or a cow. You have new life in you, life that is a part of your own genetic make-up. You and your child are communicating on an autonomic level via hormones. He feels safe. He is exercising his reflexes. He is growing, maturing, and loving the sound of your voice. Your own body and the subconscious part of your brain have welcomed him and made a place where he can grow. So even if you don't want to go on with your pregnancy, you are already his or her mother. It can't be undone, just terminated, and "it" is your child.

Please consider all of the information available to you now that may not have been available to you five years ago. I encourage you to look for scientific explanations, to see what women are learning when they want to carry their pregnancies to term, because those aren't lies or shady truths aimed at making you feel better about your choice to abort. The program, "In the Womb," keeps rerunning on the National Geographic Channel. It is not a political statement. It is a documentary based on physical, measurable, objective evidence of how very much alive the child is and has been from Day One.

My prayers are with you regardless of your choice. Thank you for stopping by and for commenting."

About Me

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation... I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - and
I will be heard." ~ William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, ca. 1831

"As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor's soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end to itself, because God is love." ~ Edith Stein